Protesters in a remote region of Chile have triggered controversy by asking Argentina to "adopt" them because they feel forgotten by Chile's government.

Residents in Aysén, a sparsely populated Patagonian realm of glaciers and forests, have lit bonfires, blocked roads and clashed with police in a campaign for more support from the capital Santiago, 800 miles (1,300km) to the north.

Puerto Aysén is about 800 miles south of Santiago

This week several thousand people in the town of Puerto Aysén marched and carried banners, some of which said "Argentina adopt us", and chanted the slogan. Students, environmentalists and trade unions were due to march in Santiago in solidarity.

Two government ministers met protest leaders to discuss their demands for jobs, cheaper fuel and food and better health services. Isolation and restricted access make Aysén's cost of living higher than other parts of Chile.

Requesting annexation by Argentina appeared an attempt to catch Chilean state attention rather than a serious proposal for secession but the idea still provoked derision from its neighbour.

Readers of Clarín, a Buenos Aires daily, scorned the invitation on the grounds Chile supported Britain during the 1982 Falklands conflict. "Why don't you ask England to adopt you? They are your best friends and allies!" said one typical comment.

It was the latest sign that the diplomatic row between London and Buenos Aires over the disputed islands has focused Argentinian grievances before the conflict's 30th anniversary.

Another reader called Chileans "dirty traitors" for having aided the British task force which seized the archipelago back from Argentina. Another defended Chileans, pointing out that it was the dictator Augusto Pinochet who helped Margaret Thatcher, not the Chilean people.

"Chileans have a very strange way of protesting … that doesn't mean they really want to be Argentinians," said one reader, then added: "Even if subconsciously all Chileans would like to be Argentinian."

Aysén is one of the biggest of Chile's 15 administrative areas but is sparsely populated, with just over 100,000 inhabitants scattered around mountains, fjords, lakes and ice fields.

The indigenous Cunco people were nearly wiped out by disease and attacks from European settlers, especially from Germany, Britain, Spain and the Balkans, who were invited to tame the wilderness by governments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The state has built roads and other basic infrastructure but the area's mining, fishing and forestry communities say they suffer from isolation, high prices and scarcity.

Following protests in the Aysén region of Chile last week, thousands of protesters in Santiago have clashed with police. Supporters took to the streets to march in solidarity with the people of the remote Patagonian area after failed attempts to negotiate improved health care, education and cheaper fuel and food with the government where the cost of living is higher due to the remoteness of the area.